Do the many benefits of almonds make it the ideal healthy snack? Even though almonds may have more carbs than nuts like pecans, the good news is they have more protein, fiber, and offer tons of health benefits. Science says these delicious and nutrient-dense nuts can aid weight loss, keep blood sugar levels balanced, improve heart health, and a lot more. While on the keto diet (a high-fat, low carb diet you can learn more about in the Body Reboot book), it’s essential to infiltrate healthy snacks. One of those healthy snacks to eat on keto are nuts. High in protein, fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants, your body is bound to soak up all the nutritional wins that come from almonds! Keep reading to learn why almonds should be a daily staple in your diet!

For starters, let’s find out why almonds are healthy, according to Perfect Keto:

Almonds are rich in healthy fatty acids, low in carbs, and packed with protein.

The macros for 1 oz. of almonds looks like this:

Calories: 164
Fat: 14g
9g of monounsaturated
3.5g of polyunsaturated
1g saturated fat
Protein: 6g
Fiber: 3.5g
Net carbs: 3g
So while they may be higher in carbs than macadamias, pecans, and walnuts (by a gram or two), almonds also deliver more fiber and almost 3x the protein of those other nuts to balance it out.

Eating a handful of almonds every day can reduce body inflammation. The antioxidants and healthy fats in almonds can do amazing things for inflammation in a body. In case you’re wondering, as Perfect Keto explains below, having higher inflammation means you have a higher risk of having issues like high blood pressure. It’s a good thing that almonds can reduce inflammation!

Chronic inflammation happens when your body thinks it’s under a constant state of attack. This can be triggered by many things, but a poor diet is one of the biggest.

Higher inflammation means your risk factors for cardiovascular disease, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, leaky gut syndrome, and even mental illness all increase.

Since the main fat in almonds comes from oleic acid, which is the same type of fatty acid you’ll find in inflammation-lowering olive oil, almonds make a great anti-inflammatory food.

They reduce oxidative stress in your body and protect it from further damage to help lower inflammation systemwide.

Vitamin E also fights off oxidative stress specifically — and almonds are full of it.

A Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2012 study supports Perfect Keto on why almonds are an excellent anti-inflammatory food. Eating almonds help by reducing cholesterol and may even help fight against type 2 diabetes.

Almonds are rich in monounsaturated fat, fiber, α-tocopherol, minerals such as magnesium and copper, and phytonutrients, albeit being energy-dense. The favorable fat composition and fiber contribute to the hypocholesterolemic benefit of almond consumption. By virtue of their unique nutrient composition, almonds are likely to benefit other modifiable cardiovascular and diabetes risks, such as body weight, glucose homeostasis, inflammation, and oxidative stress. This paper briefly reviews the nutrient composition and hypocholesterolemic benefits; the effects of almond consumption on body weight, glucose regulation, oxidative stress, and inflammation, based on the data of clinical trials, will then be discussed. Although more studies are definitely warranted, the emerging evidence supports that almond consumption beneficially influences chronic degenerative disease risk beyond cholesterol reduction, particularly in populations with metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Almonds have a lot of vitamin E, which can prevent a mind from slowing down or stop it from declining if it has already begun. In 1997, The New England Journal of Medicine used vitamin E to treat people struggling with Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers wanted to see if it would help slow the progression. They successfully used vitamin E to treat people and noticed an improvement in the patients’ symptoms.

RESULTS
Despite random assignment, the base-line score on the Mini–Mental State Examination was higher in the placebo group than in the other three groups, and this variable was highly predictive of the primary outcome (P<0.001). In the unadjusted analyses, there was no statistically significant difference in the outcomes among the four groups. In analyses that included the base-line score on the Mini–Mental State Examination as a covariate, there were significant delays in the time to the primary outcome for the patients treated with selegiline (median time, 655 days; P = 0.012), alpha-tocopherol (670 days, P = 0.001), or combination therapy (585 days, P = 0.049), as compared with the placebo group (440 days).

CONCLUSIONS
In patients with moderately severe impairment from Alzheimer's disease, treatment with selegiline or alpha-tocopherol slows the progression of disease.

Recent research also reveals that people who eat more almonds reduce their risk of breast cancer. Walnuts are another nut that can help reduce breast cancer, but to reduce your risk of cancer, you would need to eat them more frequently as opposed to just the occasional snack. The 2015 Gynecol Obstet Invest. study showed that eating a lot of nuts reduces the risk of breast cancer by 2-3 times!

RESULTS:
The high consumption of peanuts, walnuts, or almonds significantly reduced the risk for breast cancer by 2-3 times. This protective effect was not found with low or moderate seed consumption when compared with null consumption.

CONCLUSIONS:
High consumption of peanuts, walnuts, and almonds appears to be a protective factor for the development of breast cancer.

You may be staying away from eating foods high in fat like almonds, but research tells us that it’s a wise decision. It turns out almonds helps a body increase HDL cholesterol levels while lower LDL cholesterol levels. A study’s results in 2015 by J Am Heart Assoc. showed that eating almonds result in better cholesterol levels.

Evidence consistently shows that almond consumption beneficially affects lipids and lipoproteins. Almonds, however, have not been evaluated in a controlled‐feeding setting using a diet design with only a single, calorie‐matched food substitution to assess their specific effects on cardiometabolic risk factors.

Almonds reduced non‐HDL‐C, LDL‐C, and central adiposity, important risk factors for cardiometabolic dysfunction, while maintaining HDL‐C concentrations. Therefore, daily consumption of almonds (1.5 oz.), substituted for a high‐carbohydrate snack, may be a simple dietary strategy to prevent the onset of cardiometabolic diseases in healthy individuals.

A daily almond snack, isocalorically substituted for a high‐carbohydrate snack, benefited traditional and emerging CVD risk factors, including central adiposity. These improvements would be expected to decrease the risk of developing metabolic syndrome and/or CVD. Thus, daily consumption of almonds (1.5 oz.) may be a simple dietary strategy to help prevent the onset of cardiometabolic diseases in healthy individuals.

Do you want to learn about another health benefit of almonds? Almonds also help people have lower blood pressure. Since they have magnesium and magnesium helps prevent high blood pressure, it makes sense that these nuts can keep blood pressure low. A J Hum Hypertens study from 2009 showed that people who take a magnesium supplement or eat nuts like almonds could lower their diastolic blood pressure.

To test the blood pressure (BP)-lowering effect of oral magnesium supplementation (that is, magnesium chloride (MgCl(2)) solution) in diabetic hypertensive adults with hypomagnesaemia not on diuretic treatment but receiving concurrent captopril, we conducted a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Eighty-two subjects between 40 and 75 years of age were randomly enrolled. Over 4 months, subjects in the intervention group received 2.5 g of MgCl(2) (50 ml of a solution containing 50 g of MgCl(2) per 1000 ml of solution) equivalent to 450 mg of elemental magnesium, and control subjects inert placebo. The primary trial end point was a reduction in systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure. Complete follow-up was achieved for 79 of the 82 randomized subjects. SBP (-20.4+/-15.9 versus -4.7 +/- 12.7 mm Hg, P=0.03) and DBP (-8.7+/-16.3 versus -1.2+/-12.6 mm Hg, P=0.02) showed significant decreases, and high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (0.1+/-0.6 versus -0.1+/-0.7 mmol l(-1), P=0.04) a significant increase in the magnesium group compared to the placebo group. The adjusted odds ratio between serum magnesium and BP was 2.8 (95%CI: 1.4-6.9). Oral magnesium supplementation with MgCl(2) significantly reduces SBP and DBP in diabetic hypertensive adults with hypomagnesaemia.

At the time of writing this post, we're currently giving away free copies of the Body Reboot book because it's our mission to increase awareness and to help people lose weight and get healthy! If you help us cover the cost of shipping, we’ll send a copy to your door FREE. Go over to this page to see if there are any copies left. At the time of writing this post, we're currently giving away free copies of the Body Reboot book because it's our mission to increase awareness and to help people lose weight and get healthy! If you help us cover the cost of shipping, we’ll send a copy to your door FREE. Go over to this page to see if there are any copies left.

Sources: Perfect Keto, Food J. Agric. Food Chem., 2012, The New England Journal of Medicine 1997, NCBI: Gynecol Obstet Invest 2015, NCBI: J Am Heart Assoc.